1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method, apparatus, and computer program for providing sub-content while providing online content. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method, apparatus, and computer program for providing sub-content while providing online content, which provides predetermined sub-content to a user before providing main content or during an interruption in providing the main content, displays a predetermined user interface after a certain period of time, and continuously provides the sub-content only when the user selects the user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
These days, more people are watching media content including videos using a personal computer (PC) or a mobile terminal such as a smartphone. Accordingly, service providers that provide content including videos are expanding their scope by providing various kinds of content and content covering various subjects.
Many service providers have established a profit system in which a user is allowed to watch content without payment but advertising expenses for an advertisement inserted before the content is charged to an advertiser. However, in order to be offered the desired content, the user should watch the advertisement provided before the content, and a lot of users dislike this situation. Consequently, many techniques for skipping the advertisement inserted before the content are provided. For example, Korean Patent Application Publication 10-2007-0055890 (2007 May 31) discloses a method for skipping a television advertisement.
Similarly, content providers such as YOUTUBE insert a video advertisement before providing content to a user, but relieve the user's displeasure by providing a button for skipping the advertisement after a predetermined time period has passed. FIGS. 1 and 2 each show a display in YOUTUBE, in which an advertisement video is played and a skip button is present on the video before main content is provided.
In YOUTUBE, after an advertisement video is shown for five seconds, a skip button is exposed as shown in FIG. 2. When a user clicks the skip button, play of the advertisement video is stopped and main content is provided to the user. Also, when the user skips the advertisement as mentioned above, billing for the advertisement is not charged to an advertiser. In other words, by excluding the number of viewers not watching the advertisement, accurate billing may be charged to the advertiser.
However, the above mentioned method has inconvenience that the user should click the skip button to stop play of the advertisement video and to be offered the main content. Also, the method involves a negative approach in which a user who does not click the skip button is recognized as a user interested in the advertisement. Additionally, a negative approach has low accuracy compared to a positive approach such as a Click-Through Rate (CTR) approach in which the ratio of clicks is measured as a user personally clicks interesting content in advertisements including a search advertisement or a display advertisement.
Also, a user may not want to be offered sub-content such as an advertisement at the present but may want it to be offered later. However, according to the conventional method, there is no proper method for satisfying this requirement.
Additionally, considering a user's preference such as the user's response to previously provided sub-content, it is desirable to provide sub-content more appropriate for the user rather than providing random sub-content to the user.
Also, when providing various durations of sub-content to a user, if the duration of sub-content is randomly determined not considering the duration or importance of main content, the rate of viewing the sub-content may be lowered, thus causing a fall in advertisement billing rate.
Consequently, a method, apparatus, and computer program for providing sub-content while providing online content, which may reasonably submit an advertisement payment to an advertiser and may solve the inconvenience of a user having to click a skip button, have been continuously required, but a proper solution has not been provided.